“As I mentioned with Karim, there’s a lot of speculation,” he told reporters. “I don’t care about any of it. I just want to concentrate on football, all of my players will be staying here.”

Toni Kroos and Luka Modric were left out of the starting line-up against Spurs, but Benitez insisted he omitted them because he needed to spread the rotation out ahead of Wednesday’s clash with Bayern Munich.

“It’s impossible to manage it symmetrically unless you have 22 players at the same level,” the coach continued. “The changes have been made in the best possible way with the group we have.”

Madrid have now won four pre-season matches in a row ahead of their Audi Cup final clash with Pep Guardiola’s Bayern, who defeated AC Milan 3-0 after Madrid had beaten Spurs.